If you’ve ever become more breathless in winter, we want to hear your story. Things like colds and viruses, cold weather or mould might have made your lung condition worse over winter – or even led you or somebody you love to end up in hospital. This year, we want to help everyone understand how serious winter can be for people with lung conditions.
We’re particular keen to hear from you if:
• you’ve been very unwell with flu over winter
• you’ve found winter challenging (perhaps your symptoms have been particularly bad, or you’ve felt very isolated) and used our support services – our health advice, our Helpline, or Health Unlocked – to help you to manage you lung condition
Your story might be used across our social media channels, in our reports, or featured as part of our winter health advice. And we’ll support you to tell it every step of the way.
Join us in the fight for lung health. Get in touch with us at press@asthmaandlung.org.uk
Written by
ALUK_Nurses
Partner
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hello. I'm so pleased that you are addressing this. I am always, without fail, very ill every winter. Just breathing in cold air is difficult but if I catch a respiratory infection it floors me. It can start as a sniffle, a sore throat or a cough but it always, without fail, causes breathing problems, chest infections or worse. I wonder with each breath out, where my next breath in is coming from. It's very frightening. Last winter I had 5 courses of different antibiotics and 4 courses of prednisolone. It has taken 6 months to get on top of the cough I was left with but even now I have terrifying coughing fits. Now I have SOS of doxycycline and prednisolone. I have a few diazepam that I take when the cough gets so bad that my larynx spasms. During lock down I did not mix with anyone and I stayed well. It was so nice. Last winter I thought I would die and my GP was going to admit me. This winter I am going to hibernate and only do outdoor activities when the air temperature is 12 C or above. I will swim at times when it is very quiet and I will carry my own hand gel and use the machines in the gym when it is all but empty. I'm taking up all offers of vaccines and I am going to have the RSV vaccine privately. I have to keep my house very warm and the Winter Fuel Allowance helped with this enormously, but because I'm over the limit for pension credit, though by no means wealthy, it will be much more difficult this winter. I started on Tezspire injections 6 months ago and this will be my first winter with them. They have made a huge difference to my day to day life and I am forever grateful.
To add to the above, the most frightening part is that my body is so good at compensating that my obs including oxygen saturation and my temperature look normal. I don't spike a fever when I have an infection. Some GPs, asthma nurses and A&E staff rely totally on the numbers and will not treat the asthma or the respiratory infections
I'm always much worse over winter - damp, rain, fog and mist all trigger my asthma, although I'm better in frosty or snowy weather. And I find if I get any kind of respiratory infection during winter, I never pick up again until the spring. Last year, I was fortunate in steering clear of anything until very late winter. But I went down with a really nasty cold/cough two weeks ago, so I'm really hoping it clears up and I'm not going to feel rough all winter!
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